


Thirteen

by Shriek



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Gaslighting, Gen, Memory Loss, Mentions of Violence, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-03 16:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10970706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shriek/pseuds/Shriek
Summary: Bucky survived the fall. Now he has to survive what comes after.





	Thirteen

**Author's Note:**

> I should be working on chapter 3 of Sweetheart but instead my brain demanded this. Enjoy!

The first thing Bucky does when he wakes is slide his cot away from the wall and scratch a tally mark into the paint. He’s done this every day since he woke up in a Hydra prison, minus an arm and his mind a jumbled mess. He knows it’s pointless. He knows there must be days before, time taken stitching up his arm and healing it into the neat stump that ends just above where his elbow used to be. There are times when he wakes up in his cell, not remembering getting there, and sometimes he swears there are less tallies than he remembers there being. But every time he wakes up in the dim, featureless room, Bucky makes a tally on the wall.

Today the tallies line up with his memory. Thirteen. An unlucky number. Just as he has the thought, the door opens and three armed guards march in and order him to his feet, weapons at the ready.

As if he could resist. He’d tried, of course, in the earliest memory of his captivity. But weak from the fall, still learning to compensate for his lost arm, and wearing only a thin pair of pants, he’d gotten nowhere and got one hell of a beating for his trouble. So he resolved to wait it out.

Steve and the others would come looking to recover his body soon enough, and when they found no trace of it, they’d put two and two together. Steve is smart enough for that, he’s sure. The awful, more logical part of his mind says that the army wouldn’t be willing to waste the time and resources searching for what by all means should be a corpse, but Bucky knows Steve. He’d been willing to die on just the chance that Bucky had been alive in Azzano. He knew, though they never talked about it, that Bucky was different after, how fast he healed. Steve wouldn’t rest until he was sure. He just had to survive until then.

They’re probably already searching for him, Bucky tells himself as they reach the lab and his heart rate picks up on instinct. It’s been thirteen days. More. Less. Thirteen. Bucky holds to that like he holds to the knowledge that Steve will come. The guards shove him into the chair.

He’s not strapped down when Zola comes in, which has never happened before, but Zola doesn’t seem angry at the delay. In fact, he’s smiling that creepy little smile that means something’s gone his way. Those are never good days for Bucky. Unlucky number thirteen.

“Sergeant Barnes. As you know, the work we’re doing here is beyond anything of its kind. When we succeed, it will revolutionize the way wars are fought, and won. We will take away the horrors experienced by those few who still must fight for the order Hydra will bring to the world. You have resisted thus far, in helping us achieve this goal. Perhaps you still believe your idealistic vision of the world can be sustained. I am going to show you now, there is no room for men like you. Hydra’s intentions are inevitable.”

Before Bucky can snap a disinterested remark about his bullshit speech, Zola holds something out for him to see. A newspaper. The headline is in German, but Bucky can read enough to understand.

_‘Captain America Dies in Plane Crash’_

“No…”

“Yes. You see, men like that, what they represent, will always fail. There is…”

Zola continues, but Bucky isn’t listening. He’s cold with shock, the world narrowed down to one thought repeating in his head.

Steve is dead. He’s dead he’s dead he’s dead he’s- No one is coming for him.

No one is coming to save him from Hydra. Steve is the only one strong enough to stop Hydra, to stop Schmidt and he’s dead and Hydra is going to win the war and everything will be over then. Everything is over. Steve is dead and Bucky is lost and the world is lost and Steve is dead. He’s dead.

Zola gestures with his hand and restraints are clamped down on Bucky’s wrists, ankles, torso, head.

“Yes, I think that had the desired effect."


End file.
